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iambrillyant · 3 months

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“your gut instinct is not a liar, those initial feelings exist for a reason, sit on them if you need to, process whether your feelings are valid or just projections, but never dismiss your intuition when the signs are staring you in the face and your nervous system is agreeing.”

— iambrillyant

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fruitfulodyssey · 1 year

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Woe is the man

Who plants seed

And does not know

What he is growing

- FruitfulOdyssey (Book: Journey of Discernment)

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deadassdiaspore · 1 year

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#Osman Yusuf Kenadid #African Poet #Somali #African languages #African inventors

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positivesinglesdate · 1 year

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“there is nothing more powerful than realizing that your wholeness is not defined by anything but you. people may add onto the beautiful pieces that already exist within you, but nothing they do could ever complete you. the keys to your acceptance have always belonged to you.”

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thefugitivesaint · 1 year

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Nikki Giovanni, 'Allowables', ''Chasing Utopia'', 2013 Source

#nikki giovanni #Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr.#american poets #african-american poets #allowables #chasing utopia #poetry #police brutality

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yourdailyqueer · 1 month

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Zuriel Hooks

Gender: Transgender woman

Sexuality: Queer

DOB: N/A

Ethnicity: African American

Occupation: Activist, model, poet, writer

#Zuriel Hooks #black excellence #queerness #lgbt #transfemme #transgender #trans woman #queer #black #african american #poc #model #poet #writer #activist

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pagansphinx · 2 months

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Black History Month

Maya Angelou (American, 1928-2014)

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit

a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woma

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

#american women #maya anjelou #poet #essayist #black woman wrirer #american writer #african american woman of letters #poetry #contemporary poetry #american poetry #still i rise

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uwmspeccoll · 2 months

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Copper Sun

Last week we brought you Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen's (1903-1946) first major poem The Ballad of the Brown Girl. Today we present Cullen's second collected book of poetry, Copper Sun, published in New York by Harper & Brothers in 1927, with illustrations by the same artist who illustrated Ballad, the unrelated Art Deco artist Charles Cullen (1887-?). Copper Sun is a collection of over fifty poems that explore race, religion, and sexuality in Jazz Age America, and particularly the possibility of unity between white and black people, as exemplified in the two Cullens, one black, the other white.

View more work by Countee Cullen.

View other books illustrated by Charles Cullen.

View other Black History Month posts.

#Black History Month #Countee Cullen #Charles Cullen #Copper Sun #Harper & Brothers #harlem renaissance #Art Deco #African Americans #Black writers #Black poets #African American writers #illustrated books

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nickysfacts · 10 months

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All racism has ever done is slow down the creation of new beauty💜

🇺🇸👩🏾‍🦱📖

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ausetkmt · 9 months

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#James Baldwin #African American Poet #Black Writers

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iambrillyant · 5 months

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“honor the friendships that allow you to pick up from where you last left off, regardless of how long it’s been since you connected. the friendships that survive hiatuses, silences and space. those are the connections that never die.”

— iambrillyant

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fruitfulodyssey · 1 year

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Learning to observe

Myself in times of low,

Can be compromised

By immediate needs.

A work of art

Unworthy to be seen

By wandering eyes,

Because no one knows

The Demeanour, they see.

The strokes of my brush

Are interpreted based

On what the soul feels.

Yet miss to articulate

What exists in front of them.

Because the paint that clothes

The canvas holds a different

Meaning only the author

Knows.

Such details blend with

vivid colors hugging the pallet.

Nurturing a view of the horizon

In hues intimate to the one who

Orchestrated it.

How can you comprehend

what I’ve not understood

Or define in my garden

Of bloom & Odyssey.

My hour has come.

To determine the meaning

Of sacrifice when my addiction

Offer their service.

To deny myself

Of selfish satisfaction

Stealing serenity & sanity.

Staging as sovereign as if its

Some role in a grand scheme.

In my times of low

Guarding the thoughts

That breathe live

Is a necessity.

Because an idle mind

Is the devils Playground

They say.

Like a sandbox

Of trinkets dripping

In want are on display.

I'm Learning to observe

Myself in times of low,

And forgive myself

For how easy flesh succumb.

To understand patience is

Not a wish to be granted

But a daily action

Supported by the belief

"This too, shall past"

- Journey to Discernment 4

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100gayicons · 7 months

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Thanks to @rstabbert for his post about Countee Cullen. Cullen was a poet who was a part of the African American cultural revival of the 1920s and 1930s called the Harlem Renaissance.

Cullen attended New York University and won an award for his book of poems "The Ballad of the Brown Girl". When he graduated from NYU in 1925, he was one of eleven students selected to Phi Beta Kappa.

He continued on to Harvard towards a Masters Degree and published “Color”, his book of poetry that “celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism.”

Although Cullen was married twice, like other men of his era, he had to hide his true feelings about men. His friend Alain Locke introduced Cullen to the works of British poet Edward Carpenter who was an early advocate for Gay Rights. (Carpenter had maintain a same sex relationship for nearly 40 years.)

Cullen wrote about the impact Carpenter’s work had on him:

“It opened up for me soul windows which had been closed; it threw a noble and evident light on what I had begun to believe, because of what the world believes, ignoble and unnatural"

Of course some historians deny Cullen was homosexual, as is usually the case of straight society trying to deny Gay men exist.

For more about Cullen, read Rstabbert’s post.

To read about Edward Carpenter, check my post about him here:

#gay icons #gay rights #gay man #Countee Cullen #African American poet #harlem renaissance #Edward Carpenter #Harvard #black beauty #the effects of racism

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kemetic-dreams · 2 months

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